Until three nights ago.
Mark walked into our bedroom while I was already in bed, halfway through a book I wasn’t really reading.
“Sarah… you need to hear this. I have proof that your sons have been lying to you all this time.”
I sat up immediately.
“What are you talking about?”
He looked pale—not angry, just shaken.
“I was using Sam’s laptop earlier. He asked me to check something for him. A file wouldn’t open, so while I was going through the folders, I found a hidden one.”
He came over, sat at the edge of the bed, and opened the laptop.
“There’s been money going missing,” he said quietly.
I had noticed.
I just hadn’t pressed the issue.
“And the way the boys have been talking secretly lately… they stop when you walk in…” he added.
A slow, creeping doubt began to settle in as I thought about all the times I’d caught them whispering.
Mark pressed play.
Leo’s voice came through first—quiet, emotional.
“We have to keep this from Mom.”
A wave of nausea hit me.
Sam replied, “If she finds out what we’ve really been doing…”
There was a pause.
Then something in their tone shifted.
It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t guilt.
It was something I couldn’t quite understand.
Mark glanced at me, his voice low.
